On One Hand, I Had To Go To The Hospital

On the other hand, I got to see and speak to people who aren't my immediate family members! I work a mask, they checked my temperature before they would let me go to the medical infusion floor. I wore gloves to sign papers saying  I would pay my bill and used the gloves to press the elevator buttons, then I threw out the gloves in a trash can. I  used hand sanitizer after taking off the gloves. I wore my coat and mask the whole time I was in the hospital and then after I hand sanitized. I took off my mask and coat threw them in the trunk and hand sanitized again. Then I drove home took my shoes off and put all my clothes in the wash and took a shower. 

I did everything I could think of and stayed as far away as possible from everyone. My visit was to get my port flushed.  It was already really overdue for flushing. 

What is a port? A little medical device implanted up by my neck that can be used to take blood or administer IV drugs right to my jugular. They use it to give you chemotherapy drugs so your veins in your arms don't get trashed from all the sticks and medications. I should be getting the port removed, but that is an outpatient procedure and it's not essential right now.  The flush is to help avoid a potential infection so I needed to get that done. 

How was your Monday? My celery plant is coming along! Look at that! 

 Here we have my future bookshelf. I am going to try and talk BMO and Dear Daughter into putting it together for me. Wish me luck.  They are very busy with all the laying around in their rooms sleeping all day because they stay up all night long. It's only 11:27am, way too early to ask them to do it now. LOL (To be fair, they are doing school work right now, I think.)

Last picture for today,  weedy flower on my Sunday run.

Happy Tuesday!

Throwback Thursday

Remember the good old days when there wasn't a global pandemic?  Good times. Good times.  Happy Thursday to you!

I'm trying to grow celery from a celery stalk. I think it has started growing. If you look close you can see some little leaves starting inside on the lefthand side. I'm not sure what I am doing, so I turned to the internet and found this blog post: Regrowing Celery We will see how it goes.  While it is solidly Springtime, the forecast is calling for a bunch of snow tonight.  Up to 6 inches of snow, ugh!  We are still a month out from thinking about planting outside. Hopefully, I can get this celery going and transplant it outside right around Mother's Day. I am also trying to regrow lettuce, my fingers are crossed. 

Thursday is my short run day. I run in the morning and then I participate in a virtual journaling class.  It's good for reducing anxiety during this weird time. It's a group for people who have had cancer and I think everyone in the group has commented that the pandemic has triggered stress and emotions bringing one back to the uncertain days of cancer treatment.  We are all working through some things. these days. 

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

My decision last week to order our whole Easter Dinner from Boston Market was a great decision. The family all enjoyed the food, no complaints at all about my recipe decisions ( I like to try recipes from Williams-Sonoma and my family doesn't appreciate trying new things) and it was much less work for me.  The hardest part was done by The Hubs who put on a mask and gloves and picked up our order. I'm glad it was an option because I was worried about whether or not I'd be able to get all the ingredients from the store - esp. a good ham. 

Today the weather is windy and cold.  My plan was to run about 2.5 miles, I was going to cut myself slack and have an easy day. However, I was feeling good and it wasn't super, super windy so I ran 5 miles.  

As I ran, I noticed how blue the sky was and how vibrant the flowers and grass looked.  I mean, look at this picture how crystal clear is that air?!?  The reduction of cars on the road has made the air cleaner!  Do yourself a favor and go out and grab a nice deep breath of this newly improved air. (Just do that heavy breathing away from other people please).  When we get COVID-19 figured out and are able to move forward, I hope we can plan out a way to keep the gains of this time.  It's easy to see that people staying home more means less pollution = fewer fossil fuels= a reduction in climate change. 

A better environment could be had for all. I'm happy to do my part and avoid driving as much as possible. 

Made some potato salad today and since I have a bunch of parsley in the fridge, I went a little garnish crazy. Tomorrow I have a plan for dinner - it's called Taco Tuesday. I'm trying to stick to an intermittent fasting schedule of eating from 10am-6pm daily.  It's easy to do since I am at home. If I am working downtown I  can't get home in time to start making dinner before six. 

Since the teenagers stay up till all hours of the night my Early Bird Dinner Specials are more like their lunch!

Hopefully the wind dies down more overnight and tomorrow it is as beautiful and sunny as today, w/o a wind blasting from the West.

Tomorrow night I am going to get out of my comfort zone and join a Zoom workout for runners, so that will be ...interesting.

xoxo

What in Tarnation?

I spy with my little eyes a snowflake on my weather app, not once but twice in the next 10 days!  Not cool.

I'm not too worried.  A- plenty of other things to worry about and B- Chicagoland forecasts changed every hour on the hour so who knows!

Today was blustery and I was kind of slow, but I was able to run 4.5 miles and for that I am happy.

I took a picture at a local nursery here-

And then yesterday I took a photo from our front yard.

Weeds you say?  Ah pshaw, I say they are flowers I don't have to maintain.  Plus according to The Guardian: 

"Gardeners should avoid mowing over dandelions on their lawn if they want to help bees, according to the new president of the British Ecological Society.

Dandelions – which will start flowering in the UK this month – provide a valuable food source for early pollinators coming out of hibernation, including solitary bees, honey bees and hoverflies."

-The rest of the article is here!

I would like to add more flowers to our backyard this spring/summer, it, however, remains to be seen if that will be a practical pursuit, given the need to #stayhome unless you are doing essential shopping. Browsing around the garden center while the Hubs is wandering around Menards for hours isn't likely to happen this year.  I'll survive!

Speaking of surviving, I may or may not have a birthday this year. I had big plans to pester my children and the Hubs into throwing me a milestone epic bday party. A well-deserved half-century party.  Now that COVID-19 is here, I may well postpone my birthday until 2021. If the Olympics can postpone until next year so can my big party. 

Advice You Didn't Ask For!

Hi All,
I hope you are having a good Wednesday.  We are home and knock on wood-virus free. I only leave the house to go run, and when I run, I run away from people.  I also take pictures (see below).

Also, here is my advice you didn't ask for...

Boring, but free ways to not gain weight during a pandemic:

1. Weigh yourself every morning.
2. Don't eat after dinner.
3. Drink water, not booze.

See I warned you, boring free, but effective! 

Today in my neck of the woods the weather is on loan from Summer. We have to give it back tomorrow, but in the meantime,  it is the perfect afternoon to sit outside on your porch, balcony or patio.  With a nice glass of water. LOL

 Here we have the free mulch pile my city has for residents ...

 

A great sign I saw in front of a house in Worth, IL 

It's a really unusual time (understatement of the year) but I thought maybe I will try to blog a couple times a week, hopefully with lighthearted content! So this is my plan going forward in the land of quarantine.

#Stayhome #Stayhealthy